Official blog of the Sacramento Progressive Alliance, one of the largest and most vibrant progressive activist groups in California with more than 8,000 members. We educate and mobilize Progressives in Sacramento, the surrounding foothill areas, and at Sac State and Folsom Lake College.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Did the Norwegians Have a Revolution?

For the better part of a century, some visionaries have been trying to break out of the dominant belief that there are only two means of forcing change: reform through elections and revolution through violence. The rigidity of that binary choice still strangles thinking today.(London student protest, via Bowalley Road.)

A Norwegian, for instance, once wrote to me that there simply wasn’t enough direct conflict in the country to use the word “revolution”; as I have described in detail before, the Labor Party got enough votes in the 1930s so it could finally create a coalition government. An election seems to have made the change. But that view focuses on politicians and electoral forms and overlooks the main scene of the conflict, which was mass direct action in the economic arena. To say that the change happened through elections is to mistake the effect for the cause.

The Norwegian owning class fought for decades to maintain domination against the rising militancy of workers’ strikes and other forms of direct action. The 1 percent — through its instrument, the Conservative Party government — called out troops repeatedly to keep workers in line. My Norwegian father-in-law refused military service as a young man because he personally might have to shoot fellow workers rather than a national enemy. The owning class also recruited tens of thousands of people into an organization devoted to violent strike-breaking.

"The Norwegian bottom line: When the capitalists act out, they must pay for their spree, not the people."

The Labor Party was not the polite, consensus-seeking party of today’s Norway; it was the electoral representative of — and controlled by — the workers. One couldn’t even be a member of the Labor Party in the old days if one wasn’t a worker. The action that counted for Norway’s future was not in the Storting (the parliament) but in the deadly fight between the 1 percent and the trade unions. And the stakes were very high: Who would lead Norway, the super-rich and their bourgeois allies or the working class?

The stakes were so high, in fact, that a young Vidkun Quisling tried to put together a military coup against the government that was run by the Conservative Party in an attempt to suspend parliamentary forms and create an efficient dictatorship. After all, the German and Italian 1 percent supported a fascist solution to “labor unrest,” so why not the Norwegian?

California does not have enough money to continue the
funding of schools, universities, fire and safety, and social services. The Republican Party has consistently
refused to raise taxes. So, the
Republican legislative blocking
has forced the following cuts.

Medical, child care, Cal Works, Nursing homes, In Home
Supportive Services, Cal Grants ( college tuition), and a forced employee pay
cuts (5%) – such as a 4 day work week.
These cuts are from the current budget. The May Revision provides level
funding for k-12 schools.

If the tax proposals are not passed in November, there will
be an additional $5.6 billion dollars
cut from K-12 schools. These are called trigger cuts. They will be automatic if the
initiative is not passed.

These draconian cuts are imposed because the state will not-
or can not – deal with corporate tax evasions. We know of $10 billion in tax evasions from Apple, and there
probably is a similar tax evasion by Google, Yahoo, and other internet
companies.

California is Not Broke , but corporate tax subsidies
are destroying our schools.

We suffer from two problems: a huge concentration of income
at the very top of the income distribution and a tax system that fails to
tax that concentration. Our tax system asks those with less to
pay more and those with more to pay less.

For those who viewed the excellent video last night of The Heist. You may recall the role of the Peterson "think tank". Here is what they are doing this week.

Will Democrats Embrace "Austerity American Style"? Crash This Party and Find OutBy Richard (RJ) EskowCampaign for America's FutureMay 11, 2012http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012051910/will-democrats-embrace-austerity-american-style-crash-party-and-find-outHeard about the meeting that's being held to decideyour economic future? If the answer's "no," don't feelbad: That's because you weren't invited. But TimGeithner was. So was Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republicanmember of Congress whose radical right-wing plans forcutting Medicare have made him the subject of a MittRomney "bromance." So was Bill Clinton, who showed uplast year and uttered the usual Beltway insider'sfalsehoods about what's really wrong with SocialSecurity.Hey, maybe your invitation to billionaire PetePeterson's "Fiscal Summit" got lost in the mail. Ormaybe they really, really didn't want you there. Whocares? That's no reason not to go anyway.Hey, Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn't invited, and hisproposal for Social Security was much more popular withthe American people than anything that's likely to bediscussed at this little get-together.It's Your Party That's right: There's a "summit," and nobody invited the American people. They didn't even invite the guy who proposed the fiscal plan that most Americans - including most Republicans - wanted, according to the polling data. But he's going anyway.May 15, 2012 at 1 p.m. In Front Of the Peter G.Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit 1301 ConstitutionAvenue NW Washington, D.C.

The CSU Trustees were meeting inside today, first in closed session to discuss “executive personnel matters” and collective bargaining. Then they met in committee on yet another new policy to give more raises to campus presidents, now from university auxiliaries.

Meantime, 150 faculty from 20 campuses all over California protested outside. The faculty made a strong pitch that the CSU Trustees and management need to adopt policies that put instruction and student services first, and to settle a fair contract with the faculty.

CFA President Lillian Taiz, who was among the rally speakers today, called for CSU management “to get their priorities straight.”

Andy Merrifield, CFA Bargaining Team chair, said the hard work of the faculty this semester, as well as today’s actions, “provide the Bargaining Team the support it needs to work toward a fair contract at the table.”

Art Pulaski, Secretary-Treasurer of the California Federation of Labor, said fair contracts for university faculty affect every campus community’s capacity to deliver quality education to students.

[Editor's Note: Interesting analysis of the relationship between Occupy and electoral politics, even if I ultimately disagree with Berger's conclusion. - Paul B]

Max Berger, Organizer with the Occupy MovementWhy Occupy Can't -- and Shouldn't -- Become the Progressive Tea Party

Posted: 05/04/2012 3:35 pm

As long as there has been a thing called Occupy Wall Street, there have been people who've suggested it should become the left's version of the Tea Party. Josh Harkinson's piece is a notable contribution to the conversation because it comes after eight months of in-depth reporting on the movement. Harkinson, like Jennifer Granholm, suggests that Occupy should recruit and run candidates, so the left has champions in Congress and can credibly threaten less ideologically aligned Democrats. According to this logic, it doesn't matter if Occupy does this itself or essentially outsources the job to our progressive allies -- the point is to find ways to elect more good Democrats.

The idea of a progressive Tea Party was totally my jam before Occupy started. Like Harkinson, I didn't see how the left could create real change in America without taking control of the Democratic Party. Now I think it's important to recognize that the problems we face as a country can't be solved by electing more Democrats, or even by electing more good Democrats. A progressive Tea Party would be a welcome addition, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to create the kind of change we need.

If Occupy tried to start a left Tea Party, we would be following in the footsteps of several progressive movement efforts that came up short. Howard Dean's presidential campaign turned into Democracy for America to reclaim the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," the Progressive Change Campaign Committee explicitly references the DCCC, and Rebuild the Dream originally billed itself as the progressive Tea Party. I have worked for each of these organizations and have lots of respect for their work. But unfortunately, none of these projects, despite their many successes, have managed to mount a serious national effort to take out bad Democrats and replace them with good ones. They are constrained by the lack of a grassroots base in many congressional districts and big donors reluctance to fund challenges to Democrats. Even big, collaborative efforts to take out bad Democrats have a relatively poor record (See Sheyman, Ilya; Halter, Bill; or Lamont, Ned).

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Welcome to the PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE. We are a multi-racial, multi-issue "rainbow coalition" dedicated to social justice, peace and building progressive power. Our key priorities include economic justice; equal rights and equal opportunities for all regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation; international solidarity; humanitarian service; eradicating poverty at home and abroad; environmental protection and sustainable development; and electing progressives to public office and then holding them accountable.

Founded in 2005, we have grown to more than 7,000 members and have emerged as one of the largest and most grassroots activist groups in California. We are proud to serve as a local chapter Our Revolution, the national movement inspired by Bernie Sanders' historic 2016 Presidential Campaign, and as a local affiliate of United for Peace & Justice (UFPJ), a network of several hundred peace and justice groups from all over the world.

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